Short Paper: #SEVEN, a Sensor Effector Based Scenarios Model for Driving Collaborative Virtual Environment

International audienceIn this paper we present #SEVEN, a sensor effector model that enables the execution of complex scenarios for driving Virtual Reality applications. #SEVEN is based on an enhanced Petri net model which is able to describe and solve intricate event sequences. Our model also proposes several useful features for the design of collaborative scenarios for Collaborative Virtual Environments such as versatile roles and Activity Continuum. We also illustrate its usage it by describing a demonstrator that presents an implementation of our model

An interaction abstraction model for seamless avatar exchange in CVET

International audienceCollaboration and interaction between users and virtual humans in virtual environments is a crucial challenge, notably for Collaborative Virtual Environments for Training (CVET). A training procedure, indeed, often involves several actors: trainees, teammates and many times a trainer. Yet, a major benefit of CVET is to propose to users to be trained even if the required number of person needed by the procedure is not available. Therefore, almost every CVET use autonomous virtual humans to replace the missing person. In this paper, we present the main results of our project that aims at improving the effective collaboration between users and virtual humans involved in a complex task within CVET. Using an entity called the "Shell", we are able to wrap the features common to both users and virtual humans. It gives us an abstraction level to pool the management of the main processes useful to control an avatar, interact with the environment and gather knowledge from a CVET. Besides, the Shell allows seamless exchange of avatars during a procedure. Thanks to the Shell, the exchange can be carried out at any time during a task while preserving all the data associated to a role in a procedure

Collaborative Virtual Training with Physical and Communicative Autonomous Agents

International audienceVirtual agents are a real asset in collaborative virtual environment for training (CVET) as they can replace missing team members. Collaboration between such agents and users, however, is generally limited. We present here a whole integrated model of CVET focusing on the abstraction of the real or virtual nature of the actor to define a homogenous collaboration model. First, we define a new collaborative model of interaction. This model notably allows to abstract the real or virtual nature of a teammate. Moreover, we propose a new role exchange approach so that actors can swap their roles during training. The model also permits the use of physically based objects and characters animation to increase the realism of the world. Second, we design a new communicative agent model, which aims at improving collaboration with other actors using dialog to coordinate their actions and to share their knowledge. Finally, we evaluated the proposed model to estimate the resulting benefits for the users and we show that this is integrated in existing CVET applications

Collaborative Virtual Training with Physical and Communicative Autonomous Agents

International audienceVirtual agents are a real asset in collaborative virtual environment for training (CVET) as they can replace missing team members. Collaboration between such agents and users, however, is generally limited. We present here a whole integrated model of CVET focusing on the abstraction of the real or virtual nature of the actor to define a homogenous collaboration model. First, we define a new collaborative model of interaction. This model notably allows to abstract the real or virtual nature of a teammate. Moreover, we propose a new role exchange approach so that actors can swap their roles during training. The model also permits the use of physically based objects and characters animation to increase the realism of the world. Second, we design a new communicative agent model, which aims at improving collaboration with other actors using dialog to coordinate their actions and to share their knowledge. Finally, we evaluated the proposed model to estimate the resulting benefits for the users and we show that this is integrated in existing CVET applications

Late Breaking Results: Enabling interoperability between 3D formats through a generic architecture

International audienceThe ever growing number of 3D formats and rendering engines makes difficult the loading of any 3D format into a rendering engine and nearly impossible the interoperability between various 3D formats. We thus propose a generic architecture able to decode and mix 3D formats whatever the rendering engine used by Virtual Reality platforms. This architecture relies on a scene graph adapter which defines two APIs to wrap any 3D format as well as various rendering engines and to make them communicate. This flexible architecture brings interoperability between 3D formats and reusability of format and renderer wrappers

Scene Graph Adapter: An efficient Architecture to Improve Interoperability between 3D Formats and 3D Application Engines

International audienceWe present a generic architecture which enables the loading of several 3D formats in most 3D application engines. The purpose of this work is to solve the interoperability issue among 3D formats raised by the multiplicity of formats. We propose a programming interface, the Scene Graph Adapter, that allows mixing several 3D formats in a single application without transcoding. The Scene Graph Adapter is composed of two API; a first one that wraps each 3D format and a second one that wraps rendering engines. Wrappers created thanks to these API can be reused in other applications based on the Scene Graph Adapter. The paper introduces our approach and gives an implementation example

Short Paper: #SEVEN, a Sensor Effector Based Scenarios Model for Driving Collaborative Virtual Environment

International audienceIn this paper we present #SEVEN, a sensor effector model that enables the execution of complex scenarios for driving Virtual Reality applications. #SEVEN is based on an enhanced Petri net model which is able to describe and solve intricate event sequences. Our model also proposes several useful features for the design of collaborative scenarios for Collaborative Virtual Environments such as versatile roles and Activity Continuum. We also illustrate its usage it by describing a demonstrator that presents an implementation of our model

Improving Reusability of Assets for Virtual Worlds while Preserving 3D Formats Features

International audienceWe propose a generic architecture that allows mixing several 3D formats in a single viewer whatever the rendering engine used by the virtual world. Our goal is to solve the issue raised by the multiplicity of 3D formats and rendering engines through an interoperability solution inspired by the web model. Our architecture relies on the Scene Graph Adapter, a component which aims at interfacing communication between virtual world inputs (e.g. 3D files) and outputs (e.g. the interactive visualization window). For this purpose, the Scene Graph Adapter is made up of two APIs that leverages similarities between 3D formats and 3D rendering engines, the Format Adapter API and the Renderer Adapter API

3DFC: a new container for 3D file formats compositing

International audienceWe present a 3D container model that enables the compositing of 3D file formats. It allows not only to compose 3D scenes made of several 3D files of different types but also to combine their functionalities and to make them interact together in the rendering window. This model, calls 3DFC for 3D File Container, relies on the Scene Graph Adapter (SGA) architecture that makes it possible to load any scene-graph-based 3D file format in a 3D application whatever the involved engines (rendering engine, physics engine, etc.). This paper describes the 3DFC model, its integration with the SGA architecture and gives an implementation example. In this example we define a scene composed of an X3D file and a Collada file and we make their content interact in a 3D application that relies on Ogre 3D and Bullet

An interaction abstraction model for seamless avatar exchange in CVET

International audienceCollaboration and interaction between users and virtual humans in virtual environments is a crucial challenge, notably for Collaborative Virtual Environments for Training (CVET). A training procedure, indeed, often involves several actors: trainees, teammates and many times a trainer. Yet, a major benefit of CVET is to propose to users to be trained even if the required number of person needed by the procedure is not available. Therefore, almost every CVET use autonomous virtual humans to replace the missing person. In this paper, we present the main results of our project that aims at improving the effective collaboration between users and virtual humans involved in a complex task within CVET. Using an entity called the "Shell", we are able to wrap the features common to both users and virtual humans. It gives us an abstraction level to pool the management of the main processes useful to control an avatar, interact with the environment and gather knowledge from a CVET. Besides, the Shell allows seamless exchange of avatars during a procedure. Thanks to the Shell, the exchange can be carried out at any time during a task while preserving all the data associated to a role in a procedure